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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427593">The Bruises That You Left Behind</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang'>idrilhadhafang</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Ben Solo, Angry Poe Dameron, Ben Solo Is Severed From The Force After Exegol, Ben Solo Lives, Ben Solo is Not Nice, Ben Solo is a Mess, Evil Snoke, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Not Sure If Wreck It Or Fix It, Past Brainwashing, Past Character Death, Past Mind Rape, Past Torture, Protective Poe Dameron</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:46:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,638</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427593</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben returns to the Resistance without the Force. Not everyone is happy to see him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Poe Dameron/Ben Solo, Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Bruises That You Left Behind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Prompt: Unrequited Love/Pining</p><p>Disclaimer: I own nothing. </p><p>Author’s Notes: This is angrier/angstier than usual. Let’s say I got tired of asshole!Poe and needed to vent. (Seriously, why the fuck is asshole!Poe so popular?) Title from “Bruises” by Lewis Capaldi.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ben’s come home. <br/><br/>Truthfully, Poe doesn’t know what to think. The fact that Ben gave his Force Sensitivity in order to save Rey...it does sound like something that Ben would do. The old Ben, that is. The Ben that Poe knew. There’s something, though, about the Ben that came back that just feels different, more reserved, more closed off. He’s also just ignoring Poe, staying close to Rey — of course, considering that Rey actually believes in him when most of the Resistance just seem confused as to what to do with him, what to think. Lando, for example, just seems confused as to how his informal nephew became a galactic tyrant. So does Chewie. Poe knows that he’s wondering how the boy he loved became a monster — the same monster that ripped out his memories, who killed Han Solo and good as killed Leia Organa. Who ordered a whole village on Tuanul slaughtered. The list goes on. It isn’t Ben, wasn’t Ben. And Poe wishes that there was a straightforward feeling in regards to Ben. That there was straightforward forgiveness, straightforward hate. He knows, of course, that he means nothing to Ben. Ben seems to give more of a damn about a woman who said some sweet words to him than...<br/><br/>And that hurts. More than anything. Knowing that the most Ben can respond to him is kriff-him-I-don’t-care. The same boy who saw the good in him even when he ran off to be a spice runner. (Maybe he was ungrateful to his father too, but he didn’t kill him)<br/><br/>Before, he was something. Now he’s nothing. Someone who can be hollowed out and discarded at will. Someone who used to be something. Someone who...<br/><br/>Poe looks down at his food, just feeling how untouched it is. He doesn’t think he wants to touch it. Not after what happened.<br/><br/>“General?” D’Arcy says, if softly. “You should eat.”<br/><br/>Poe doesn’t think he wants to. <br/><br/>***<br/><br/>“You should talk to him.”<br/><br/>Rey’s voice, soft. There’s something about it that hurts, Ben thinks.<br/><br/>“He doesn’t want to talk to me,” Ben says, finally. “He’s too much of a self-centered idiot who’s addicted to being the Resistance’s poster — ” <br/><br/>“It would be more convincing if it wasn’t obvious that Snoke told you that,” Rey says. <br/><br/>He can’t argue with that. He can still remember Snoke’s voice, burrowed under his skin like a splinter long after the bastard’s dead. <em>He’s incapable of love and compassion, just like the rest of these Resistance vermin. They preach that they help the oppressed, but where were they when other worlds were in need? </em><br/><br/>Ben had protested, of course. And Snoke had said, <em>You say that until he has your hand at your throat. Until he has you on the rack, shocking you, slicing you until there’s so little left of you. He’s a monster like the rest and must be punished. </em><br/><br/>“How do you know he wouldn’t have tortured me too?” he says. He’s less talking to Rey, more talking to himself. “He wouldn’t have needed the Force to do it. If he’d had me at his mercy, he would have destroyed me, he hates the First Order that much. He’s enough of a monster.”<br/><br/>“Poe’s not like that,” Rey says. “None of us are. Maybe there’s some radicals who just want the First Order to hurt, but we don’t torture people. The majority of us don’t.”<br/><br/>Ben scoffs. “Liar.”<br/><br/>Rey pauses in that moment. Ben continues. “You think I’d just change my mind about the Resistance?”<br/><br/>Rey’s quiet for a long time. Then, “I hoped you’d get better.”<br/><br/>“You don’t know me.”<br/><br/><em>No one does, </em>Ben thinks. <em>No one left alive, at least. </em><br/><br/>***<br/><br/>They hold the funeral for Leia the next morning. Even giving the eulogy, Poe supposes that he did a great job, considering just how exhausted he was, how everything about and surrounding Leia hurts to consider. <br/><br/>Ben’s still avoiding him. And it occurs to Poe, just from the looks Ben gives Poe, that Ben hates him. <br/><br/><em>Imagine that, </em>Poe thinks, sardonically. <em>He tortured me, and somehow I’m the monster. </em><br/><br/>He can’t say he hates Ben. Even though he should. Even though that preconception of how-he-should-react is scratching at him, eating at him. Even though, for some inexplicable reason, Ben hates him. Did he do anything, not do anything? Maybe Ben’s initial belief of Poe as all but brilliant, radiant, wonderful — maybe even that couldn’t last for long. <br/><br/><em>I’m not all Light, Ben. If I was, I wouldn’t be making the mistakes I did. </em><br/><br/>He knows that now, especially. He wouldn’t have gotten so many people killed if he was all Light. Or made a stupid mistake about Holdo. Or treated everyone, including Finn (one of his best friends) like complete bantha fodder. He would have saved Ben earlier if he’d been all Light. He would have had stable teen years with his dad if he was all Light, instead of running away from home. <br/><br/><em>I’m not all Light. </em><br/><br/>He wonders if Ben will learn that, if ever. <br/><br/>***<br/><br/>The feel of a vibroblade in his hand is different than the feel of a lightsaber. A vibroblade feels made for quick cuts, lashes — Ben thinks absently of a sword, or an Echani weapon. <em>You don’t need a lightsaber to do damage, but it’s a bonus, </em>Ren once told him. Ben wonders if lightsabers are the same when a non-Force-Sensitive (or an ex-Force-Sensitive, in his case) wields them. He knows that his father was able to use a lightsaber to cut open a tauntaun, he knows that much. <br/><br/>He’s practicing. Thwacking a training dummy. Hitting it with all he’s got. It’s still easy, even without the Force. Muscle memory. That’s what really matters, doesn’t it?<br/><br/>When footsteps enter the room, Ben misses the feeling of knowing who was coming, at least — without that feeling, Ben thinks, it’s almost like a missing limb, one of the five senses almost gone. He’s glad Rey’s alive, and yet without the Force, he feels all but useless...<br/><br/>Ben turns around. It’s Poe. Even despite his words to Rey, there has been something in Ben that’s wanted Poe to talk to him, or for Ben himself to get some sense back into him and talk to Poe. <br/><br/>“Busy?” Poe says. <br/><br/>“You could say that,” Ben says. <br/><br/>“You can’t just do what you did and avoid me,” Poe says as he steps further into the room. <br/><br/>Ben shrugs. “No reason I can’t.”<br/><br/>It’s deceptively casual. It’s enough to cover up the feeling like his insides have turned to snakes. <br/><br/>“You don’t know how much you hurt me,” Poe says. <br/><br/>“You would have done the same if our places were exchanged.”<br/><br/>“What?” Poe exclaims. “What makes you even think I’d do that to you?”<br/><br/>“You would have wanted to. You hated the First Order enough.”<br/><br/>“The Resistance doesn’t torture. Or kill unless necessary.”<br/><br/>Of course he had to go there. Ben can’t read thoughts like he could before, but he knows almost all of the Resistance thinks he’s a murderer. “So you claim. Tell me, Poe — are you only angry because you wanted my father to adopt you as well? Make you my replacement?” A beat. “It didn’t work anyway. Even though you likely wanted it to.”<br/><br/>“I — ”<br/><br/>“You didn’t care,” Ben snarls at him. “You never did. You only cared that I was cutting into your valuable kriffing time as Leia Organa’s favorite adopted child. And I’m sure she was happy to brush me under the cargo ramp. Because I wasn’t you.”<br/><br/>He’s rewarded by Poe’s face shifting between anger and shock and confusion. “She didn’t even mention that...”<br/><br/>“Oh, she didn’t?” Ben sneers. “She never mentioned that she felt that way? While we’re at it, she didn’t mention that her darling son was being mentally raped every night, and she did nothing because she didn’t care? Then again, maybe she should have told you; I’m sure you would have loved knowing that little tidbit...”<br/><br/>Poe actually flinches. “First off, don’t talk to me about that. And second off, what the kriff makes you think I’m sick enough to enjoy you being hurt?”<br/><br/>Ben tenses in that moment. For a moment, he can’t think of a good answer. <br/><br/>Poe continues. “I...I never wanted that to happen to you.”<br/><br/>“Liar," Ben says. <br/><br/>The next three words are frustrated, almost desperate. “I love you, Ben!”<br/><br/>Ben freezes where he is. There’s something in him still fighting this with all he has. He doesn’t want to believe Poe’s lies, and yet he wants to believe them, if only if it means...<br/><br/>Poe looks away, if briefly. Ben wants to imagine that the sorrow in his eyes is feigned, but it isn’t. There’s certain microexpressions that you get used to seeing when Poe’s lying, and Ben can’t see them. <br/><br/>Poe continues. “At least, trust that...there’s a whole galaxy of difference between being angry at you and wanting you hurt. I don’t hate you. Even after what you did. Maybe I should. But I know who you were before and it’s not easily forgotten.”<br/><br/>“I suppose.”<br/><br/>Poe sighs. “Even if you don’t think I’m important anymore...”<br/><br/>“I didn’t think that. And...” Ben exhales softly. “You are important. Too important. Snoke...” And even telling Poe the truth about the poison that Snoke slipped into his head, he’s ashamed of himself. To think he was that fickle. To think he was that gullible. Even though he’d argued, even though he’d fought, even though Snoke had all but shown him only a portion of what was really going on...<br/><br/>Hesitantly, Poe brushes a hand over Ben’s. “I wish I’d known,” he says. “I would have gone and got you. I would have burned down the whole First Order for you.”<br/><br/>Ben smiles, despite himself. “I should have known.”</p>
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